Monthly Archive December 2018
1: IBM’s Watson Is NOT Our New Computer Overlord
AI help, not hype: It won at Jeopardy (with specially chosen “softball” questions) but is not the hoped-for aid to cancer specialists
2: AI Can Write Novels and Screenplays Better than the Pros!
AI help, not hype: Software can automatically generate word sequences based on material fed in from existing scripts. But with what result?“AI rites reel gud!” Seriously, the idea is not new. Back in the 1940s, George Orwell (1903–1950) thought that a machine could write popular novels so long as no creative thinking was involved. Thus, in his 1984 police state world, one of the central characters has a job minding a machine that mass produces them. In the 1960s, some film experiments were done along these lines, using Westerns (cowboy stories). At the time, there were masses of formula-based film material to work with in this popular genre. But what does the product look and sound like? In 2016, Ars Technica was proud to sponsor “the first AI-written sci-fi script:” As explained in The Guardian, a recurrent neural network “was fed the Read More ›
In One Sense, Consciousness IS an Illusion…
We have no knowledge of the processes of our consciousness, only of the objects of its attention, whether they are physical, emotional, or abstract
3: With Mind-Reading AI, You Will Never Have Secrets Again!
AI help, not hype, with Robert J. Marks: Did you read about the flap they had to cut out of a volunteer’s skull?The Daily Mail is the United Kingdom’s second largest circulation daily. A headline from the webpage screams: No more secrets! New mind-reading machine can translate your thoughts and display them as text INSTANTLY! Not a lot of nuance there. The story continues on a tidal wave of hyperbole, • Researchers say they have developed a machine that can translate our thoughts • The astonishing machine will analyse what you are thinking and display it as text ending with a charitable hope: • Scientists hope that the machine can be used by people who are unable to speak The reality is that AI can read your mind for a few words repeated often if you have a flap cut out of your skull and Read More ›
Can Big Data Beat the Humans Who Compile It?
A computer pioneer bets no: Human intelligence augmented by artificial intelligence will always beat artificial intelligence alone. Is he right?
4: Making AI Look More Human Makes It More Human-like!
AI help, not hype, with Robert J. Marks: Technicians can do a lot these days with automated lip-syncs and smiles but what’s behind them?
How Can We Measure Meaningful Information?
Neither randomness nor order alone creates meaning. So how can we identify communications?
5: AI Can Fight Hate Speech!
AI can carry out its programmers’ biases and that’s all
6: AI Can Even Exploit Loopholes in the Code!
AI adopts a solution in an allowed set, maybe not the one you expected
7: Computers can develop creative solutions on their own!
AI help, not hype, with Robert J. Marks: Programmers may be surprised by which solution, from a range they built in, comes out on top
8: AI Just Needs a Bigger Truck!
AI help, not hype, with Robert J. Marks: Can we create superintelligent computers just by adding more computing power?
What Do Thoughts Weigh?
Robert Marks thrashes out with Michael Medved why our minds are neither meat nor softwareIn a wide-ranging conversation, Robert Marks and Michael Medved tackle questions like what it means for something to be not just unknown but “unknowable.”
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9: Will That Army Robot Squid Ever Be “Self-Aware”?
AI help, not hype: What would it take for a robot to be self-aware?
Is Salad Murder?
A Darwinian biologist wrestles with the significance of plant intelligenceIf plants can sense things and communicate with each other, even though they lack a mind or brain, should they have rights? In an age of sometimes violent animal rights activism, that’s not an idle question. Plant physiologist Ulrich Kutschera, author of Physiology of Plants. Sensible Vegetation in Action (January 2019, German), talked about it in a recent interview: This is a serious issue which is related to plant intelligence. In April 2009, the Swiss Parliament discussed the topic of “plant ethics” and proposed to attribute to plants a kind of “Würde”, which can be translated as “dignity” (3). As a consequence, some radical plant ethics-activists have distributed T-shirts and other propaganda material with the slogan “Salad is murder”. Despite Read More ›
10. Is AI Really Becoming “Human-like”?
AI help, not hype: Here’s #10 of our Top Ten AI hypes, flops, and spins of 2018A headline from the UK Telegraph reads “DeepMind's AlphaZero now showing human-like intuition in historical 'turning point' for AI” Don't worry if you missed it.
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Google Search: Its Secret of Success Revealed
The secret is not the Big Data pile. No, Google found a way to harness YOUR wants and needsGoogle is one of the most widely misunderstood success stories of our time. Many of us equate Google with “Big Data,” that is, amassing huge quantities of data and then finding useful statistical patterns. But is that how it succeeded? In Life after Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy, George Gilder criticizes Google primarily on two fronts: First, it is a “walled garden,” a great platform, but inherently isolated and closed. That is a point worth exploring, but not the focus here. The second point, the one I want to touch on, is that Big Data’s day has come and gone. Because Google is a Big Data company, its brightest days are behind it. Read More ›
The Human Mind from a Computer Science Perspective
The Blyth Institute’s new journal will offer a focus on artificial intelligence and philosophy as well as philosophical questions in mathematics and engineering
Be Choosy About What You Automate!
Having automated many processes, I can assure you that that is the First Rule of Automation